President Akufo-Addo urges world leaders to “reform the unjust and unfair UN Security Council Now.”
In order to keep up with modern trends, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged other heads of state and government to demand quick reforms at the Security Council.
President Akufo-Addo said it is long past time to rectify the long-standing injustice that the current structure and membership of the UN Security Council represent for the nations of Africa in his address to the 78th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
“After serving on the Council at this difficult time in the world,” he claimed, “our views on the need for reform have been even more strongly re-asserted.”
President Akufo-Addo said it is long past time to rectify the long-standing injustice that the current structure and membership of the UN Security Council represent for the nations of Africa in his address to the 78th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
“After serving on the Council at this difficult time in the world,” he claimed, “our views on the need for reform have been even more strongly re-asserted.”
With Ghana currently serving out the second of her two-year term on the Security Council as a non-permanent member, President Akufo-Addo expressed disappointment at the fact that African countries, “have witnessed, at first hand, over and over again, that the big powers of the United Nations might be preaching democracy, fairness and justice around the world, but are happy to practice the opposite here at the UN, prioritizing parochial interests over those of humanity.”
Despite all that has been proudly accomplished in the organization’s seventy-eight years of existence, he expressed the undoubtedly held opinion that African nations still have to deal with “the reluctance by the nations, organizations and the major powers at the formation of the organization, to agree to any reform to reflect present realities has led to the undermining of the credibility of the United Nations and some of its organs, in particular the Security Council.”
He referred to the fact that in his inaugural address as President of Ghana before the UN General Assembly, “I spoke at length on the need for reform of the United Nations and of the Security Council in particular.”
“I then stated that this Organization’s urgent need for reform had been discussed and planned for a long time, but we had never managed to muster the bravery and determination to carry it through. Then, I remarked that Ghana supports UN reform, particularly that of the Security Council, as outlined in Africa’s Common Position on UN Reform, which is based on the Ezulwini Consensus.
In his final statement, he emphasized that even if the Assembly had chosen the restoration of trust as essential to bringing stability and prosperity back to our world, “it cannot rebuild that trust when the organization that should bind us is seen by many as contributing to the perpetuation of an unfair world order, which is reinforced by an unfair, dysfunctional global financial architecture.”
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